1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus and a storage medium containing a program for controlling the image processing apparatus. More particularly, the invention relates to an image processing apparatus and a storage medium containing a program for controlling the image processing apparatus, which are adapted to automatically recognize and cut a face image of a human object out of a digital photograph (digital image data).
2. Description of the Prior Art
Since higher performance personal computers, scanners and digital cameras have been in widespread use in recent years, not only corporate users in printing offices, and phototypesetting offices but also personal users increasingly have opportunities to deal with digital photographs. The users typically use photoretouching software on a personal computer to correct blemishes and hues of digital photographs.
With the use of photoretouching software, an object image portion can be cut out of one image and pasted on another image. For example, a human object image can be cut out of a digital photograph containing a human object and pasted on a scene in another digital photograph. Thus, a composite digital photograph can be produced which contains the human object as if it was present in the scene. This technique can also be applied to production of digital ID photographs. However, the image processing operation for cutting only a human object image out of a digital photograph is manually performed, thereby requiring considerable time and labor.
As prior art image processing for ID photographs, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. HEI 7(1995)-303250, for example, proposes an apparatus for taking an ID photograph, which is adapted to take a photograph of a human object after the size of a human object image is properly adjusted with respect to the size of the photograph by comparing the size of a human object area with the size of a photographing area.
According to Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 7(1995)-303250, however, no consideration is given to the cut-out of a human object image, since the apparatus is designed specifically for ID photographs. Therefore, the apparatus cannot adjust the size of a human object image cut out of a background image (such as a building, for example) nor extract a particular human object from an image containing a plurality of human objects. Further, the apparatus is not designed to deal with a finished photograph.